EAST OF EDEN

By the time this third album came out, little was left of the original spirit of East Of Eden and only violinist Dave Arbus of the original line-up. They had changed from one progressive label Deram to another Harvest, but also lost their experimental edge in the process. As a matter of fact, aside from more conventional song structures, this album has a slight country music feel , but rest assured nothing remotely strong as I usually cannot stand that type of Amaricana slice.

Wonderful feeling is a first hint of a change but the country feel emanates only from Arbus's violin. Goodbye actually is a fairly pleasant track that could easily fit on Traffic's LSOHHB album and you will agree that this is quite a reference. Next up is the almost 7min Crazy Daisy, is a relatively harder edged rocking tune with Arbus switching to the sax and new guitarist pulling in a good scorching solo in the middle and a good Spanish drama feel a bit reminiscent of Cream's Deserted cities Of The Heart or an early Colosseum track.

Side 2 starts on rather straightforward track that again makes you thing of Cream - mostly the Jack Bruce-like vocals - but the track is rather sub-par. Take What You Need is also rather tame but not devoid of qualities either, but the slight country feel comes back a bit but you also think of the Allman Bros. No Time is another track that resolutely hints at Traffic, Cream and Blind Faith or even a less crazed Family. This is certainly no coincidence but also mainly due again to David Jack's voice but not only that the playing behind is rather good and sometimes borderline brilliant. The closing track is another rocker in the style of Crazy Daisy but lacks its brilliance

This third album is quite far removed from the experimental forays of their first two albums, but the album has many charms and holds some interest for progheads. Unfortunately by the Following album, New Leaf, the group will have another drastic change of personnel as none of the members will be present on it, this creating a precedent for other prog bands Renaissance and somewhat later and more slowly Soft Machine.

"East of Eden" is the eponymously titled third full-length studio album by UK, Bristol based rock act East of Eden. The album was released through Harvest Records in June 1971. It´s the successor to "Snafu" from February 1970, although the two full-length studio albums are bridged by the band´s most successful release, which was the 1970 Jig-A-Jig single (a non-album single track). Major lineup changes had again taken place between album releases (which happened throughout the career of East of Eden) and only Dave Arbus (violin, saxophone, flute) remains from the lineup who recorded "Snafu". New in the lineup are Jim Roche (guitar), David Jack (bass, vocals, acoustic guitar), and Jeff Allen (drums, percussion).

Stylistically "East of Eden" is also a completely different beast to the first two albums by the band (which were also both pretty different from each other). If "Snafu" saw East of Eden experiment to the fullest of their potential creating a hybrid jazz/rock, psychedelic rock, avant-garde rock release, this third album sees the band scaling back on the experimental ideas, stripping down their sound to a vers/chorus based vocal dominated rock style with folk/blues rock leanings. If you didn´t know it you would never have guessed it´s the same band playing here, but then again...with all the lineup changes it can be argued that it really isn´t. The occasional flute, violin, or saxophone part pops up and that´s when you recognise that it´s East of Eden playing, but other than that this is so different from what came before, that this could just as easily have been a completely different band playing.

When the band finally lets rip and leave the vers/chorus vocal comfort zone of their music it´s still audible that they are great musicians and there are some pretty great instrumental parts featured on this album. The vocal sections of the music aren´t band either, but if you come to this album expecting anything like the first two albums you´ll come away disappointed. "East of Eden" is a well produced album featuring a powerful, organic, and detailed sound production, which suits the material well, so upon conclusion this is a good quality rock release out of context. But put into the context that it´s a follow-up release to "Snafu" it´s a bit of an oddity. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.